One name may be commonly used for two or more similar species or even unrelated ones. When I was in my high school biology class, the one that always confused me was the variety of plants called liverworts.

Let's start with the "primitive" liverworts. They are green, nonvascular plants and are not too different in lifestyle from their ancestors, which were some of the first land plants. Since they don't have water-conducting vessels, they can only grow when the humidity is high, similar to mosses.

Some species live in drier habitats, such as on tree bark, by going dormant during dry weather. These liverworts often were classified with mosses as Bryophytes, but now have their own division of the plant kingdom.

One I occasionally see near streams and at the base of damp rocks is Conocephalum conicum, the snakeskin liverwort. Snakeskin liverwort has a ribbonlike body that hugs the damp rock or ground it lives on, often forming sizable patches. The lobes of some of these plants must have reminded people of a liver, with its three-lobed structure.

The higher plant called liverwort also is known as hepatica. It is a beautiful wildflower occasionally found in our local woodlands. Hepatica flowers vary in color from plant to plant; they may be white, pinkish or blue. Several populations of hepatica around here have a nice proportion of blue flowers, which are my favorites.

Hepatica is associated with livers because of the three-lobed leaves, again a resemblance to the three lobed shape of our liver. The leaves overwinter and often acquire a reddish-brown, or liver, color when exposed to winter sunlight. I think this might be another reason for the name.

Hepatica likes rich soils near streams and soils formed on top of the rock diabase, commonly called trap rock and found in some areas of southern Berks County and northern Lancaster and Montgomery counties.

Theoretically, plants' scientific names are supposed to provide a stable and nonconfusing way for biologists to identify them. An organism's scientific name is often colloquially referred to as its Latin name. Each organism is supposed to have one valid scientific name, but the names can change over time as new information about relationships between organisms is discovered. So now common hepatica, once called Hepatica americana or Hepatica triloba, is lumped in with the European species Hepatica nobilis and is called Hepatica nobilis variety obtusa.

Recent DNA studies have determined that hepatica more properly belongs in the genus Anemone, where our native wood anemone (Anemone quiquifolia) is placed. This hasn't been universally accepted by botanists, so Anemome americana is considered a synonym and not a valid name. For now. If you look hepatica up in a field guide, you might find any of the foregoing names listed, depending on when the book was written.

Garden plant names also have interesting histories. This can be a problem when the scientific name has been adopted as the common name by most gardeners. The familiar garden geranium used to be at home in the genus of the same name, but botanists have split our showy garden annual out of the genus into a new genus called Pelargonium, while a number of Eurasian species remain true geraniums. Many of these are familiar garden perennials.

The conclusion is, the correct name for a plants may be a matter of botanical opinion.

Mike Slater is a naturalist who lives in Brecknock Township, where he is an active member of the Mengel Natural History Society of Berks County and the Muhlenberg Botanic Society of Lancaster. He is also a member of the Baird Ornithological Club. Reach him at paplantings@gmail.com.